


Technical Support

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1627091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by Cormorant</p><p>Alba attends a CDP support group.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Technical Support

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bobcat Moran

 

 

"I bet I know more about time travel than any of them," Alba said on the way to the CDP support group. "None of them can go where they want like I can. Probably." 

"You'll just have to sit it through, sweetie, it's only an hour a week," Clare said, eyes on the road. Neither of them were thrilled about the support group, but Mrs. Fletcher the principal had laid down the law. Either Alba attended the support group and got her time travel under control, or the school stopped making concessions for the times when Alba disappeared suddenly in the middle of class and didn't show up again for days. 

"They don't understand my disability," said Alba, which was what she'd heard Clare telling Mrs. Fletcher over the phone: "You don't understand the nature of my daughter's disability!" 

"You don't have a disability," Clare said, taking her hands off the wheel to gesture. Alba cringed, even though they were slowing to stop at a red light. "You have an ability. Time travel is a talent." 

Alba knew that Clare was trying to make up for the fact that she'd talked about time travel for years like it was a terrible dangerous thing that couldn't be avoided. Time travel had killed Dad, more or less, though Clare never said that one out loud, and it might kill Alba if she wasn't careful, so it was very very important to look after herself and to never tell too much about the future. 

There'd been a lot more awareness about CDP's for the past few years, though, and all of a sudden there were books (Living with Chrono-Displacement), pamphlets ("How to Talk to your Chronologically Impaired Child"), and even a sitcom (Misplaced!, about two roommates, one chrono-displaced, and one insane). Clare's general policy, she'd told Alba, was that she didn't need any of that stuff to tell her about time travel-any questions Alba had, Clare could answer just from living with Henry, and Alba could always wait and talk to her dad herself if it was really complicated. Some of the advice from the pamphlets had to seep in though, or maybe Clare had even read them secretly, but it was suddenly very clear that you weren't supposed to think of time travel as a terrible disease, something to be overcome, because this kind of thinking warped kids' minds and convinced them life was terrible, and probably turned them into sociopaths. Alba didn't care about most of this-she liked time travelling but she knew it was dangerous-but she was pretty sure that Clare paid it at least some attention and was now overcompensating for all the dire warnings. That was probably why she hadn't tried too hard to get Alba out of the mandatory support group. They pulled up in front of the community centre and Alba got out of the car, juggling her backpack, jacket, and umbrella. "Try to have a good time," said Clare. "I'll be back for you in an hour. 

"I'll do my best. Love you, Mom." 

"Don't tell them you steal things," Clare said, grinning a little, and pulled away.  
  


Meeting Room A was deserted except for a bored teenaged girl in a trenchcoat reading Slaughterhouse Five. Grey folding chairs were set in a wobbly circle on the beige carpet, there was a water cooler and a plate of dry-looking sugar cookies on the table in the corner, and a faded poster promoting "Chrono-awareness" was peeling off the wall. It looked just like every support group meeting room Alba had ever seen in the movies. She was impressed. 

The teenaged girl snorted at something. Alba looked at her more closely. She had curly black hair, but her face was buried in the book. 

"Excuse me?" Alba said politely. 

The girl looked up. "What?" she snarled. 

"Alba!" Alba said accusingly. She'd thought it was her. Typical. She'd have to sit through this stupid meeting twice. 

"Hey, Alba," said teenage Alba. "Don't worry, you end up enjoying the meetings. So much so you don't want to miss the first ones. I've been coming to these for months." 

Great. She was going to be brainwashed by the support group. Alba sunk resignedly into one of the folding chairs and took off her jacket. "Where are you from?" she asked herself. 

"I'm seventeen. You should really read this, Alba, it'll blow your mind." 

"Is that your first time reading it?" 

"I'm halfway though in my time. It's about war and futility-" 

"I can't read it then, can I?" snapped Alba. "I won't get to it until I'm you." 

Teenaged Alba only shrugged and went back to her book. Alba stared at the poster, bored, and wondered if the grammar had been right in that sentence. Time travel made grammar tricky, and talking to yourself made pronouns almost impossible. It was even worse when your self was kind of annoying, like teenage Alba was. Alba was not looking forward being a teenager. She liked grown-up Alba well enough, although she went through an irritating depressed period in her forties, but teenaged Alba could be insufferable-she was worse at fifteen, though. 

Alba wondered if she should try one of the cookies and decided not to bother. "Where's everybody else?" she asked herself. 

"Late," said teenage Alba, not looking up. "We're not really good at punctuality, you know." 

"We?" 

Teenage Alba put the book down for long enough to give Alba a scornful look. "Time travelers," she said. 

"Oh." Alba had thought for a horrific moment that the support group members were all her from different times. "I don't know any but you and Dad." 

"You don't know me, you are me," teenaged Alba said condescendingly. "And here they come right now." 

How do you know, Alba almost asked, since there was no sign of anyone approaching, but of course teenaged Alba remembered from when she was there the first time. From when she was me, Alba told herself and felt a dej^ vu-ish sensation as though she were looking at herself from far away. 

Then it was gone, and a group of people were coming through the door. "Sorry," said a frazzled-looking woman with messy hair who seemed to be the leader. "Everyone thought we were in Room B this week." 

"That was last week," said teenaged Alba, who hadn't gotten up or put away her book. 

"No, that's next week, I remember the email," said a man in a business suit. "Or wait-is it last week? Fuck! I came to meetings out of order again." 

"Bernie, don't swear in front of the kid," said the leader, starting to rearrange the chairs ineffectually. 

"I wish you would not use age-dependent categorizations in your speech," said another woman, who had black hair in a ponytail and a curiously intent expression. 

"Well, you know what, Marcia," said Bernie the businessman, "I wish you would-" 

"Okay!" the leader interrupted. "Let's all take a seat and get started. It looks like we have a new member this week, guys, so let's try to have a nice respectful discussion. Okay?" 

Alba was not impressed so far. She watched as the people sat down. Besides Bernie, Marcia, and the leader, there was an old man in sunglasses who hadn't spoken or changed expression so far. 

"It's nice to have some more young people in the group," the leader said, smiling at Alba. "It'll be good for Alba to have someone more her own age." 

"No such luck, it's only me," teenaged Alba said, before Marcia could get angry about age-dependent categories again. "She's been ordered to come here as punishment for missing class." 

Alba glared. Teenaged Alba was making her sound like a delinquent. The other time travelers seemed sympathetic though-they all nodded knowingly and smiled. 

"Pronouns, Alba," the leader scolded gently. 

"I've been ordered to come here," teenaged Alba said, rolling her eyes. "And so on." 

"We try not to call ourselves by the third person in this space," the leader explained, looking at Alba. "That means saying 'she' or 'her' instead of 'I' or 'me.'" 

"I know what third person means," Alba said. "Doesn't that get confusing?" 

"A little, but part of our philosophy here is that we recognize the full scope of our selves, including the fact that we may exist at one time in two bodies. Okay?" 

Alba wasn't sure what most of that meant, but she nodded anyway, since Marcia was leaning across the circle and looking like she wanted to elaborate on the leader's explanation. As little explanation of their kooky philosophy as possible was probably the best idea. 

"Let's introduce ourselves, then," said the leader. "I'm Sarah, and I was diagnosed with chrono-displacement when I was ten. I don't tend to meet myself much, but I have travelled pretty far into the past, and I'm good friends with some people in the 1660's. And I work as a kindergarten teacher." 

Not a huge surprise, thought Alba. Sarah turned to Bernie, who introduced himself as a stock broker who was "against messing with history, even if it makes you feel good about yourself or whatever." That didn't make much sense to Alba, until Marcia started talking. 

"My name is Marcia," she said, "And I'm a member of the chrono-unity movement. We believe that time is an illusion, a pseudo-facist constraint imposed on the beauty of full existence. The only way to rid ourselves of it is to refuse to co-operate with its restraints. Whenever I see myself, I tell myself as many details about the future as I can, but I never act in accordance with those details. When the chrono-free are finally accepted by society, we will reach a singularity at which all time will disappear and the past will become the future ..." 

There was more in the same vein, but Alba stopped listening. Marcia reminded her of Gomez, but creepier. The best thing was probably to not pay attention to her. 

Marcia finally ground to a halt when the old man in sunglasses cleared his throat. "My name is Ep," he said, "and I'm from the year 2600. I'm afraid I cannot, under any circumstances, tell you any details about my time, nor can I tell you why I can't tell you. I'm just here to observe. And for the cookies. That was a joke." 

Ep's expression barely changed throughout the entire speech. Alba wondered if the whole thing was a joke, or just the part about the cookies. 

"Alba," said Sarah, "you didn't introduce yourself when you first came here. Because you said you already had?" 

Teenage Alba waved a hand in Alba's direction. Alba hoped she wasn't expected to give her philosophy on time travel. She didn't really have one, she mostly just went by what her dad said-never tell yourself anything big about the future. Unless you really really want to. 

"My name is Alba," she said. "They've known I'm a CDP ever since I was born, because my dad time travels too and he met me in the future. I play the violin, and I like to read." Alba thought for a second, then added, "I'm twelve," just to annoy Marcia. 

"Great, thank you, Alba," Sarah said quickly. "Shall we move on to our topic this week? It was Ep's turn to suggest a topic, and Ep, I think you suggested 'time travel and death'?" 

Alba and teenage Alba both started at the same time, and looked at each other with identical wary expressions. 

"That is factual," said Ep. "I am interested in seeing how people of your time period understand this topic." 

"Time travel makes us immortal!" said Marcia, who had looked like she was bursting to talk since the topic was mentioned. "When time is eliminated, death will be only another life event, ending nothing, for-" 

"That's just great," said Bernie, "just ignore the fact that people do live a finite number of years, you know-once you're gone, you're gone, even if your timeline's a little confused, it doesn't mean-" 

"Maybe not now-I mean, maybe not here-but when the singularity comes-" 

"I've been to the future-don't you think I would've noticed a glorious melding of all timelines or something? Don't you think Ep would've noticed it?" 

"It'll probably come after Ep's time!" 

Alba would have found this whole conversation funny enough to make up for being forced to come to the group, but she was still stuck on Bernie saying "Once you're gone, you're gone." There weren't any more dates on Henry's list of times he came to her present, but they still might run into each other in the past again. Alba had never asked for a list of those times. 

It was about to get worse. "Death has no meaning if you can still see the person afterwards," Marcia said. 

"Yes it does!" Bernie said. "Maybe not for other people, but I think the person who's dead might notice the difference! Or not, as the case may be, you can't really notice a lot when you're buried." 

This was too much. Alba didn't believe in forcing other people to watch your emotional outbursts, so she stood, and politely asked Sarah if she might be excused to use the bathroom. 

Sarah nodded, worried eyes still fixed on Bernie and Marcia. Alba did her best not to run out of the room.  
  


She found a bench in the corridor and sat down, already crying a little. The thing was, she hadn't been as sad as Clare was, when Henry died. She hadn't even been sad at all right away. Her dad would be gone for a while, but she'd see him again. And Henry used to go away for weeks at a time all the time, time travelling. She'd missed him the way you missed someone who'd gone away on a trip, she couldn't make herself grieve as though he was dead. 

She still felt like that, really, it just might be a very long trip. But Alba's mom was still so sad, even when she was happy. Alba couldn't imagine what it was like to be so sad. That was what Marcia was missing: everyone didn't time travel, you always left people behind when you went. Maybe that was the good thing about the time singularity: everyone got to come along. 

Alba didn't realise how hard she was crying, until she felt an arm around her shoulder and looked up to see teenaged Alba sitting next to her. Alba turned without thinking and hugged her teenaged self, sobbing into her own shoulder. Teenaged Alba patted Alba's shoulder and Alba felt better and less lonely, even though she was the only person in the hallway. 

"Feel better?" teenaged Alba asked when Alba stopped crying. 

Alba nodded. 

"Can I tell you something from the future?" teenage Alba asked. Alba couldn't remember that she'd ever asked herself permission before, but that didn't mean it had never happened. Another problem with time travel was you were never sure if you remembered everything. 

"Tell me," she said. 

"I went to the support group in my time, to see what'd happened. Bernie and Marcia are married. Marcia went back in time and told herself, but I think her past self thought she was joking." 

Alba giggled. "Will I see you next week?" she asked herself. 

"Sure. I was just there a few days ago. And, you know, we'll figure out the whole philosophy of time travel thing later. I met a really old me a few years, she seemed to have the whole thing figured out." 

"You mean, you seemed to have the whole thing figured out." 

"I like third person," teenaged Alba said. "Come on, let's go wash your face." 

Alba took herself by the hand, and they set off down the corridor.  
  


 


End file.
